FARANG Untamed Travel Magazine’s penultimate issue. We skipped February because we couldn’t afford the print bill. This issue features one of my favourite Bartipping pieces, A Whiff of Hops, which I completed with Editor in Chief, Cameron Cooper, no relation.
A former colleague of mine asked for her stories from our days at FARANG Untamed Travel. Scanning the stories from the print editions is a massive pain and I recently acquired an Adobe InDesign license so I can finally convert the old design files I’ve been hanging into for going on 20 years.
You’ll find the result below in WordPress’ cumbersome embedded file format, I’d recommend just downloading it. Sadly there are missing fonts and some grainy photos where the high-res version has been lost but that’s life.
Sadly, this was the last issue to come out of Toolbox Media and it was a rapid slide into bankruptcy next. I recall my final pay was half in cash and half in office furniture, some of which still serves me today.
Sachie and I recently spent a long weekend in Phuket. I got a window seat at the back of the plane and, being a daytime flight, a pretty good view.
We had stayed at Miss Sachie’s resort, Marriott Mai Khao Beach Club, and had a lovely time. You can’t quite see it in the photo below but you can see Marriott Phuket Beach Club if you know where to look.
Continue reading “Bangkok from Above”Day two and we are checking out of the hotel and in the car to Telavi. A quick word about getting around in Georgia: Bolt. There’s taxis and busses and trains and so on, even a subway, but Bolt is cheap and good. We took one from Tbilisi to Telavi, a two-hour drive, for 133 Lari (or “Larrys” as I called them) or about 50 bucks. I guess there’s a bus that’s cheaper but we’re only around for a week so no time to lose and the ride was spectacular.
I’m afraid you can’t see the sign very well but it was raining and the car was going fast but that’s the sign for George Bush Boulevard. He was a popular chap in Georgia at one time, helping them get a bit closer to NATO membership or something. Didn’t do them much good when Russia invaded though.
Continue reading “Dan Went down to Georgia: Day II”Back in May, the lady and I went to Georgia. No, not the Peach State, in the US of A. The one in the Caucasus, next to Russia. Of course, May being close to February, the war in Ukraine was fresh in most minds and my mother was very concerned that we would be in danger. So it was easy to assure her that we’d be quite safe from the Russian army as they had already invaded Georgia, back in 2008, and they were now busy further north.
Georgia is a small country, there are only about four million Georgians, but they have a long history. They have their own wacky language and even wackier alphabet, a strong literary tradition, a fierce sense of independence and an 8,000-year long wine tradition. We, of course, went for the wine.
The flight is done and we have been picked up by the hotel. Let’s check in.
Continue reading “Dan Went down to Georgia: Day I”